You’re cruising in your car, traffic moving slowly. To your right, a silver RHD NSX; to your left, a ’70s Monte Carlo on hydraulics. The air is filled with the sound of loud stereos, VQ engines, and 5.0s revving their motors. All along the road, every business is practically its own meet. Gas stations are full to capacity with cars you’ve only seen on TikTok and Instagram. This scene lasts for miles and happens every evening from Wednesday through Saturday. Where could you possibly be? SlammedEnuff Gatlinburg/Sevierville in early October.
I’m sure we’ve all seen and heard about SlammedEnuff, with its crazy TikToks and IG reels. But what’s it really like? It’s even better than it sounds. On April 1 of this year, SlammedEnuff’s Instagram decided to post an April Fools’ joke: SE Gatlinburg was no more. Oh no—was it canceled? Are car shows dying? Is this another situation like H2Oi? No, it turns out they just changed the name to Sevierville (which is more accurate, as that’s where the show has been for the last several years anyway).
So I hit the group chat: who’s down to chip in on an Airbnb cabin? After finding a group, coordinating, and making a payment to lock in the dates, all that was left was to wait. I even decided to submit my car for the show, just to see if I’d get in—never believing it stood a chance. After all, many consider this the Super Bowl of car shows in the U.S. My car is unique, but I don’t have tons of camber, and yeah, I’m “lip low,” but hardly what I’d consider “SlammedEnuff” material. To my surprise, I was selected!
The “Gat curse” struck me in August of this year, and I managed to break my foot—twice, no less. It was bad enough that I couldn’t comfortably drive my STI with its aftermarket clutch the 14 hours I’d need to get to Tennessee and back. Undaunted, I decided to take the role of passenger princess in my wife’s WRX, hoping I could work her clutch enough to still do some runs on the nearby Tail of the Dragon. If I’m being honest, Tail of the Dragon is the main reason I wanted to go. This was my fourth time at the Dragon, since 2012. The show being this weekend, was just one great bonus for me.
October finally comes, and it’s time for our road trip to Tennessee. The group chat is buzzing, everyone’s updating their locations and ETAs. We find ourselves at the bottom of a very steep, very treacherous road (only once did someone in the group almost drive off the mountain) up to our Airbnb—a beautiful cabin with amazing views of the Smoky Mountains. It has a game room complete with a pool table and ping pong table, a hot tub on the screened-in porch, three levels, and enough beds to accommodate everyone. Everyone slowly arrives, unpacks, and we spend the evening gathering supplies and discussing plans for the long weekend.
With the show taking place on Saturday and Sunday, and us arriving on Wednesday evening, we had plenty of time for other activities. First on everyone’s list was driving an hour to the Tail of the Dragon—probably the most famous road in the U.S. for car enthusiasts. It has 318 curves in 11 miles and is a very dangerous, high-risk road that’s almost too long to ever memorize, especially in just a weekend. I’ve been to the Tail of the Dragon before, so I know how it can bite. Many drivers and motorcyclists have lost their lives on that road due to overconfidence, equipment failure, or someone traveling in the opposite direction coming into their lane. It’s something always on your mind whenever you drive that road.
Our five-car group heads out Thursday morning, meeting up with another six cars for a total of 11. We gather on the Foothills Parkway, another gorgeous road with plenty of scenic pull-offs and smooth, rhythmic sections, just a few miles from the Dragon. The cars that are more familiar with and confident on touge roads pull out first, with the rest following behind. The Tail of the Dragon has some general etiquette you should know if you’re a first-timer:
- Don’t cross the mustard (the center double yellow line).
- If someone faster is behind you, use the many pull-offs to let them pass, wait until it’s clear, and then re-enter the road.
- Stay within your limits. Don’t let your ego force you to keep up with more skilled drivers who are maintaining a pace you can’t.
Stick to those general rules, and your odds of making it to the end are much better. Did I mention the photographers? The Tail of the Dragon is so popular that there’s a niche industry that exists solely there. Photographers are strategically placed along the road, taking pictures of everyone who passes through. They have websites where you can buy digital copies, prints, and even T-shirts. If you’re starting on the TN side of the Dragon, at the end in NC, you’ll find two shops with souvenirs—everything from stickers to tees, hoodies, and signs, all to show you’ve conquered the Dragon. If you come all the way down to Sevierville/Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg as a car enthusiast, it would be a huge mistake not to drive the extra hour to the Tail of the Dragon. There are tons of other fantastic roads in the area; you could spend weeks exploring them all.
On Friday, everyone wants to go back to the Dragon and also visit the top of Fontana Dam. Being at the Dragon is like a Forza Horizon lobby come to life. It’s like your local Cars and Coffee but turned up to 10, with everyone being a driver. I saw a Mitsubishi FTO for the first time, along with Porsches, Ferraris, S2000s, GTRs, and STIs—some stock, some fully modified, and everything in between—all sprinkled in with Harleys and liter bikes.
The evenings are for cruising the strip in Pigeon Forge. The car wash has a line that goes around the block. Everyone’s gotta look their best. It’s practically grid lock, but with all manner of builds. People line every parking lot, and sit on the side of the road in their folding chairs just taking it all in. There are people on mopeds in Squirrel suits (H2Oi banana gang pt2?). Drift livery s15, yeah, you’ll see it. Stanced c6 corvette. Super clean Lexus LS sitting just right? Definitely. Miles of modified cars, just cruising up and down the road. While you have the occasional moron 2 stepping at a light, or doing a pull in traffic, overall it was very mild compared to what I expected. Vibes were great, mostly positive and it seemed like everyone was just living their best lives. Police seemed focused on those behaving the worst, and if you behaved yourself, you’d have no issues.
Saturday morning is the car show. I’ve been to quite a few car shows in the last few years, but nothing came close to the amount of people and cars that were there. It was packed. The music was loud, but not overly, and there were tons of vendors selling some of the coolest merch. We all had to leave with at least one tee to add to our collection, right? I may have left with 5. Which reminds me, I need more hangers. There were Marlboro-wrapped Mercedes, midnight purple Toyota Chasers with engraved engine bays, widebody Nissan Silvia S15s, and millennium jade green R34 GTRs. So much variety all in one place. Not just stance, not just JDM. On Sunday, they switch out cars to keep the display fresh. Award presentations are done at the end of the second day, and everyone prepares to head back home. I’ve been to a number of car shows over the last few years, and while I consider myself more of a touge/function first kinda guy, I still had a fantastic time, as did everyone that came with us.
It’s Monday. We’ve all said our goodbyes, packed our things, and headed out. It’s not a trip to the South without a stop at Buc-ee’s gas station. Even the gas station at 8 AM feels like a Forza Horizon lobby—stance cars everywhere and show cars on trailers. One last reminder of how great the weekend was. People talk about “Gat Depression,” that feeling of sadness when it’s all over, and you just want it to never end. It’s a real thing, for sure. But as my friend said to me this morning, “Don’t be sad it’s over; be happy it happened.”
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